Bad usability design

17082008

Ever go to a website that is just, plain, awful? And I’m not talking about rotating NEW! gifs on everything, but just so poorly designed, so unfriendly, so unusable that you wonder what they were thinking of?

The short answer is that they had probably just gotten a hold of a new technology and were trying out all the bells and whistles they could think of, then lost interest in the project and were studing something new.

The longer answer is that they are just stupid dolts who care more for eye candy than their web site, or are looking for the Wow! factor to show management instead of wowwing the site’s users, or who never learned anything about design in the first place.

Of course YOU would never do that! Never! You are to smart and sophisticated, to thoughtful, to considerate and aware of users’ needs to do something so marginal.

But, we all have lapses, we all make mistakes, we all have areas of knowledge that aren’t as up-to-date as they should be, and sometimes those show up in our work.

Fortunately the guys at bad usability.com know that, and out of their experience using some of these doltish websites have put together a calendar illustrating the latest and lowest examples for our benefit. Really thoughtful of them!